Most residential dwellings and commercial establishments have a kitchen equipped for the preparation and cooking of food. In commercial kitchens and restaurants, professional chefs may prepare dozens of different dishes each day that require a number of ingredients in their recipes. To prepare so many different dishes, restaurants must keep large supplies of food on hand; not only fresh foods, but also frozen foods that must be thawed before a chef may prepare a meal. Food is commonly frozen both for transportation and to prolong the effective life of the food between the time it is harvested or processed and the time it is served.
Restaurants may plan ahead by thawing expected amounts of frozen food before the frozen food is required to be cooked. While demand for certain meals may remain fairly regular and the need for ingredients may be anticipated, at times when restaurants run specials on certain dishes, when business fluctuates, etc., demand for dishes and their ingredients becomes uncertain. It is this uncertainty of demand that requires restaurants to keep a great deal of their food frozen and ready to be thawed for an appetite not yet sated because frozen food spoils, especially if thawed at high temperatures.
Conventional food thawers are not optimally suited for thawing food in contemporary professional kitchens in which a chef and kitchen staff need to satisfy demand for meals listed on a restaurant's menu in a timely manner, whether or not the ingredients needed for those dishes are fresh or, as so often is the case, frozen. The contemporary professional kitchen must comply with local or state rules and regulations to ensure that when frozen food is thawed, the thawing process is sanitary and, resultantly, preserves customer health safety.
Generally, restaurants are not allowed to simply immerse frozen food in a water bath for thawing, regardless of whether the water bath is either agitated or filtered and recycled. Contemporary professional kitchens are also prohibited from placing frozen food directly on a food preparation surface, or even a dedicated thawing surface, to allow the food to thaw in the open air at the kitchen's ambient temperature. These thawing practices are generally banned from professional kitchens because they present potential health risks to the restaurant's customers, e.g., they are likely to promote bacterial growth.
Certain conventional thawing devices are powered electrically to operate fans, heating elements, or steam generators. Other conventional thawing devices are used to thaw already prepared foods or foods in frozen containers, but lack the ability to thaw different types of raw foods simultaneously. Therefore, such conventional thawing devices pose a greater likelihood of cross-contamination and foreign substance contamination.
Three procedures are generally recognized as being acceptable for thawing food in a professional kitchen. First, food may be removed from a freezer and placed in a refrigerator to thaw. This procedure is rather slow due to the relatively low refrigerator temperature and does not allow a kitchen to meet a sudden demand for a certain dish that requires ingredients still in the freezer. In fact, it generally takes several hours for frozen food to be adequately thawed when using this procedure.
In a second generally recognized procedure, frozen food may be placed in a microwave oven and defrosted. Although this procedure is significantly quicker than thawing food in a refrigerator, thawing food in a microwave oven has drawbacks. Because raising the temperature of food very quickly from its frozen state promotes bacterial growth, microwaved food must then be cooked immediately. Microwaved food also often results in the deterioration of the food's quality, e.g., dehydration, “hot spots,” and inadvertent “cooking” of portions of the food. In addition, purchasing and/or dedicating a microwave oven for food thawing can be expensive if, for example, a restaurant microwave oven under heavy usage breaks down and needs repair. Additionally, the inconvenience of dedicating a microwave oven for thawing food is often impractical. In addition, microwaved food cannot be refrozen and must be either prepared and served or discarded after thawing.
Finally, a professional kitchen may thaw frozen food by placing the food in a sink and running water over the food, all the while allowing the water to drain away from the food. This procedure requires a stream of water at a temperature suitable to warm the frozen food, typically less than 70° F., provided by a cold water tap. However, the frozen food may thaw too quickly and unevenly, and bacterial growth may be promoted. Moreover, a user must attend to the stream of water, as the food thaws, to ensure uniform thawing. Of course, while the user is attending to the thawing food, other kitchen duties are ignored. To prevent cross-contamination, only a single type of food may be placed in the sink at any time. For example, a single stream of water could not be used to thaw shrimp and chicken simultaneously due to the potential for cross-contamination.
These and other methods that utilize the kitchen sink in conjunction with thawing exclude the sink from being used for its intended purpose. The demand for frozen food to be thawed usually comes during peak business hours when the sinks are filled with solutions to wash, rinse, and/or sanitize and are being used for cleaning pots and pans. In addition to the interruption in sink use, the solutions must be drained, wasting water, time, and solution chemicals. The sink must also be sanitized before and after thawing if the frozen food being thawed comes in contact with sink surfaces, thus preventing cross-contamination and bacterial growth.
It would be desirable, therefore, to provide a food thawing device and food thawing methods that overcome these and other deficiencies of conventional thawing devices and methods.